Elements from Below
by AshLikesCash
Summary: Ariena has always been unusual. She knew that from the start. But when Ariena gets trapped in a web of conceit and cruel intentions because of her gifts, what will she do?
1. Preface

**Would you believe it if I told you that magic exists? Would you believe it if I told you that this Earth is controlled by a powerful force? What controls it? It's them, the elements. They look after everything. They make sure everything is running smoothly from where they live, deep beneath the surface of the Earth. And I am one of them…**


	2. Arrival

**hi guys. unlike all my other fanfics, this is actually my idea. Thanks to Frances, my friend for helping me to write this and thanks also to HoneyLemonx for unknowingly giving me the idea that I could upload this story onto This story is dedicated to her. Thanks**

**Ashx **

**Chapter One: The Arrival:**

"Oi! Freak!" shouted a voice Ariena had heard so many times in her life that she could recognise it anywhere. She ignored the voice and lifted up the plant that she had been looking at. From what she had read about it, it was going to flower for the first and only time that year at some point that night.

Excitement filled her. Ariena loved everything to do with plants. Her favourite place was a small glade down on the banks of the river in a village nearby. There were mountains almost completely surrounding it and lots of rare wildlife resided there. If she climbed right up to the top of the huge oak tree next to the river, she could see Rome, glittering far away in the distance.

She put her hand over the plant, concentrated hard and blew on it softly. Opening her eyes, she found the plant attached to its roots again, just as it had been before she picked it. She yawned, tiredness taking over for a moment.

The power that she had just exercised over the plant exhausted her every time she used it. This was the power that had earned the nickname 'Freak' for her. She couldn't explain it but she could somehow control plants, and occasionally water.

The shout came again. "Hey, I'm speaking to you, stupid!" They started to approach her in a threatening manner. She now felt that it was best to run. Adrenaline rushed through her veins as she sprinted towards a nearby forest. Surely they wouldn't follow her there.

However, just as she began to slow down, she heard a yell from behind her. They weren't going to leave her this time, she realised in horror. She quickened her pace once again, dashing through the trees like the wolves that inhabited the place. Her energy was beginning to fail her. Another sound drummed in her ears, this time much closer. Too close.

She turned her head, her golden hair flinging wildly in her face as searched for somewhere to hide. A huge oak tree caught her eye. She stumbled towards it and swung herself up one of the branches.

All of a sudden, her pursuers encircled her and surrounded the oak tree. The tallest one swiped his hand at her, forcing her to lean backwards. She lost her balance and felt the air whooshing up at her as she fell. She hit the ground with a loud thud. Looking up, she saw the bullies gradually get closer. She wished the ground would swallow her up where she lay. However, that was exactly what it did…

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She opened her eyes, adjusting to the dim light. Her head was throbbing and she could barely see a thing. There were some weak torches on the stone walls, but apart from that, there wasn't much light.

She stood up, attempting to take in her new surroundings. She was only just beginning to worry when she heard a growl that seemed to be coming from the air just above her head. Looking up, she almost screamed in shock at the sight that met her eyes. A tiny, ancient looking man was floating over her head, scowling at her.

"What do you think you're doing? Get back to work!" The voice issuing from the strange figure's almost non-existent mouth was hoarse and rough. It cut into Ariena's ears and, for some reason, she found herself doing exactly what he said. Realising what she was doing, she forced herself to stop.

Frowning, she turned to the little man. He had a whip in his hands and the look on his face clearly showed endless longing to use it. Ariena didn't like that look at all.

Feeling slightly worried, she began to inch away from the stranger. Turning, she broke into a run once again. She felt a strange sense of déja vu as she heard the yells following her. She was aware of the panic taking over her and she pelted at full speed straight towards a dead end.

She shrieked and beat the walls with her fists. To her immense surprise, although she should probably have been used to this by now, the walls slid away and she fell to the floor.

Out of nowhere, a hand pulled her back to her feet. She stared through her tear -filled eyes. The person standing before her was tall, had very messy auburn hair and eyes raging with fire. In her opinion, he was far too thin for his own good.

Keeping eye contact with her, he started to walk backwards, pulling her along with him. Relief flooded through her as she peered behind her to see the wall sliding closed, trapping the funny little man and his cronies outside…

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**I hope you're liking this story - please review!**

**☺**


	3. Flame

heres chapter two, guys. please review. this chapter is dedicated to my form (8G) for being great friends throughout my years in secondary school. hope u guys never change. it's also dedicated to mum as it was mother's day yeasterday.

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**Chapter Two: Flame:**

The boy had been woken just before what he thought was probably dawn by a loud screech and several thumps; they were coming from the direction of one of his secret entrances. Jumping up, he grabbed his cloak and set off to discover the cause of the commotion.

It did not take him long to find the source. A false wall to his left was shaking furiously and he could hear whimpering coming from the other side. Coughing slightly from the dust falling from the false wall, he made his way over to the lever he had built and stood back. The wall slid into the rock face on either side of it.

A young golden-haired girl fell to the ground with a violent scream. In the distance he could hear one of the slave masters hurrying down the tunnel, gathering up slaves in search of

someone. He presumed that someone was this girl.

Holding out his hand to shaking figure, he waited for he to take it. Eventually, she did peering curiously up at him through her piercing blue eyes. Without breaking eye contact, he helped her to her feet, taking in her torn clothes and dirty face. He walked backwards, pulling her further into his home away from the closing wall…

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A deafening silence hung in his ears. The girl was staring at him. Her eyes were bright and jumping all over the place. They were the only things he could see in the pitch black. Patting her shoulder to let her know he was still there, he released her hand and felt his way over to a point on the wall where a torch bracket hung. Taking a deep breath, he blew on the small pile of wood inside. They burst into flame when the flow of air reached them.

Happy with the dancing river of light now flooding through the cave, he turned back to the girl. She was standing by another wall, obviously exhausted. However, she seemed reluctant to lean against it. Chuckling, he finally decided to speak to her.

"Don't worry. This one doesn't move."

She didn't look terribly convinced, so he walked over and pushed his hands against the wall to prove it.

She flopped onto the floor with a groan. He sat down next to her, watching her with interest. Where the hell had she come from? His father would have had him beaten for such language, even though he hadn't said it out loud. However, at the moment, he didn't care the least. He just wanted to know what was going on.

When he opened his mouth to ask her, however, he was cut off by a sweet noise which rung with the sounds of running water, but, underneath that, the low warning sound of an earthquake. The girl was speaking.

"What's going on? Who are you? Where are we?" She was talking very quickly and he only just understood. The girl continued to rant. Every time he tried to get a word in edgeways, she spoke again until, eventually, he gave up and pushed his hand roughly into her mouth.

She stopped. Sighing, he slowly took his hand out and finally managed to speak.

"I'm Flame. Don't ask about my surname because I don't know it." It was a white lie. What she didn't know wouldn't hurt her. Hopefully.

"I don't have any idea how you got here, so don't bother asking me that either. As for where we are, I would have thought it was obvious. We are in the underworld, dominion of King Hades 967th and his most royal son Prince Hades."

He spoke tonelessly, simply reeling off what he'd been taught since he was a small child and still had a family.

The girl was silent for a moment. Wondering what she was going to do and wondering what he was meant to do, it having been about twelve years since he had last had company. Thankfully, she spoke first.

"My name is Ariena. I don't know my surname either. I'm not entirely sure how I got here, but I remember falling over and wishing the ground would sort of open up beneath me and it did."

Flame's head turned at that.

"What! So you…you're from the Above?" he exclaimed. At her puzzled expression to his reaction, he hastily explained himself. " You come from a place above the ground where there is a sun that shines instead of the Earthlight. There is a story about that here."

Yet again, he sighed, resigning himself to telling the story of the elements.

"Long ago, when King Hades 1st was king, he made a law that his wife, Persephone who came from above would only be allowed to visit the lands above for half of the year. The other half (the winter months), Persephone was to live with Hades.

One year, when Persephone was visiting the lands above, she was brutally murdered by a human being, seemingly for no reason at all. Just before she drew her last breath, she placed a protection over lands above. She created four elements; each to represent fire, air, earth and water. These elements continued to look over the lands above in the later years and their magical powers were passed down the generations.

King Hades had now developed a deep hatred for all humans and distanced his own self and the underworld from them. However, he continued to look after the humans along with these unknown elements since it was his last promise to his most beloved wife. As the years went by, he was forgotten by humans and now, all that is known of him is portrayed as a legend."

Ariena took a while to digest the information, afterwards saying, "You said powers. Back home I can do strange things like those Elements you spoke of. That's how I ended up here." Flame laughed. "It was just a story. Elements don't really exist."

"So this is the underworld?" He nodded slowly. "What, like hell?"

There was a deafening silence. After a while, he whispered, "You shouldn't have said that." She blinked. "I think it's about time you got back home."

With that, he grabbed her hand and led her through a tunnel that she hadn't noticed before. It was hidden away in a corner and it was hardly noticeable. They travelled through a series of tunnels and passageways until they finally reached a grand staircase that seemed as if it hadn't been used in years. A ray of light streamed in through a minuscule crack. She could see a huge doorway at the top of the staircase and she immediately knew what it was: a gateway. She ran towards the gateway and hurried through it. Squinting at the glaring sun, she saw the huge oak door disappear behind her. She turned around to face her new surroundings…

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She gasped. There were huge cracks in the ground and the buildings that had been there previously had been reduced to piles of brick and rubble. The beautiful village that she had known almost all her life was destroyed.

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so, please review. press that cute lil button down there.

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	4. Return

Here's chapter 3. hope you like it.

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Chapter Three: Return

Ariena's mouth fell open. How could this have happened? There were _never_ earthquakes in this part of the country. She jumped deftly over a crack in the ground. Bending down, she saw something. The tree that she'd been sitting in only that morning was flat on the ground, almost completely covered by the remains of a church spire.

However, by far the worst shock was when she spotted something crushed under a collapsed wall. A human hand. The arm stuck out of the rubble at an odd angle and there was blood running down it, dripping off the end of one of the fingers.

She screamed. If there had been anyone alive, there would have been some reaction in this mostly friendly village, but there was nothing. Tears began streaming down her face and her breath came in laboured sobs.

Turning away from the horrid sight of the bloodied arm, she ran. She needed to find someone alive, somewhere. She raced back into the trees and headed towards the place that she had first got into the Underworld from. Upon reaching the clearing, she stopped. What now? She thought for a moment, before deciding to do something that she never done before. She took a deep breath, drawing the power up in her. She was trying to keep her mind on the task in hand, trying to stop the lingering doubt in her mind that she wouldn't be able to do it. She had never dared to try controlling something as big as this before.

Still breathing heavily, she raised her hands and brought them crashing back down to the ground.

CRACK!

The ground split in two as the tremendous noise filled her ears. She looked down at her feet. Far away at the bottom of the pit before her, she could see a tiny patch of light and something moving. Closing her eyes, fighting to control her fears, she stepped forward.

The cold air swept up around her like a million bee stings at once. The feeling of no ground beneath her feet made Ariena feel uneasy, but just as she began to feel sure it would never end, it did.

She opened her eyes nervously. There was the rock ground, right below her face, but she hadn't hit it. Looking around, she realised that she was floating in mid-air. Closing her eyes again, she breathed a faint sigh of relief. However, just at that moment, she dropped onto the hard ground.

Wincing, she stood up and looked around the cave. It was pitch black, but for the comforting glow of a tiny fire far away in the distance. She slowly made her way to it, limping slightly because of her awkward landing.

As she grew closer, she noticed a figure crouching near it. A tall, red headed figure. Flame. She broke into a run and let out a loud cry. Flame turned his head and stared at her, shocked.

"What are you doing here?" he asked her when she reached him. "I thought you were back in the Above."

At this, Ariena simply stared back at him for a moment and then burst into tears. In a flash Flame had crossed over to her and put his arm around her shoulder. He said to her, in as comforting a voice as he could muster,

"What happened?"

She glanced up at him. Taking a deep breath, she told him what she had seen. He listened, his eyes growing wider with every sentence. By the time he had finished, he was almost shaking in anger, the fire in his eyes dancing wildly.

He stepped away from Ariena sharply. After a moments thought, he said, in a voice full of barely controlled anger,

"Come on."

He jerked his head back down the passage Ariena had arrived through, and held his hand out to her. Nervously, she took it, but not before worriedly asking,

"What are we going to do?"

Flame answered this question stiffly, as if he was on the brink of releasing information he was reluctant to give.

"We are going to see the King."

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please review! 


	5. Cruel Intentions

**Chapter Four: Cruel Intentions:**

Flame led Ariena along the silent corridor by candlelight, casting a pod of light only just bright enough for them to see their way around. Ariena could just make out a line of life size paintings on the walls, all showing a young man standing in exactly the same position. It was only upon looking closer towards them that she realised that they were all of different people who looked very similar. They all had the same fiery eyes. Flame's eyes.

Frowning, Ariena turned to him, about to ask whom they were of. However, she was cut off before she even started by Flame, who had who had stopped walking abruptly. He leant his head against a large, wooden doorway motioning for her to do the same. She turned her attention to what was going on in the other room.

"And how is the grand plan going, your majesty?"

Someone on the other side of the door was speaking. He had a low, commanding voice that would have almost been beautiful if it hadn't been dripping with ice-cold venom. The speaker was answered by another voice that sounded very like his but much older.

"Fine. The girl set off the earthquake just as I intended. Within another hour, the gateway will be unstable enough to let the armies through and then we will invade."

Ariena gasped loudly. Clasping her hand to her mouth, she thought she heard the voices falter. She bit her lip nervously and glanced up at Flame. He was standing completely still, his face contorted with barely controlled anger.

They were both silent as the voices rose up again like a bomb through the door. The older one was now shouting.

"DO NOT ARGUE WITH ME! This invasion will take away any reason for the girl wanting to leave. She will stay here and I can bend her power to my will."

"But what about the boy?" the other voice asked with a hint of worry in his voice. "Won't he try to help her?"

The older voice chuckled menacingly.

That boy will stay away if he has any sense. Anyway, if he does try anything, we'll just tell the girl."

He continued, but Ariena was no longer listening. She was concentrating on Flame who was now shaking with fury. As soon as those final words were made clear, he muttered, "Right, that's it!" and charged through the door. It slammed into the wall with a loud crash, causing the two speakers to swing around to find the source of the commotion.

Ariena walked into the room tentatively. When she saw it, she gasped again. It was an enormous marble hall, but the walls were almost entirely covered by red tapestries.

There was a large platform at the other end, on which were standing two men. One looked only about twenty-five. He had red hair and incredibly pale skin. The other seemed much older, but he had to be related to the younger man. Looking that alike, there was no way they could not have been.

The two of them stared at Flame for a moment and then, much to Ariena's surprise, the older one began to laugh. It was low, but sharp, cruel even. It sent a shiver down Ariena's spine.

"Well, well, look at what we've got here then. The Young Rebel. So you've finally decided to return to us, have you, boy?"

He turned to Ariena, and his sneer grew even wider.

"Oh, and the girl too. Well, this makes things a lot easier! Guards!"

He jerked his head towards her suddenly and Ariena felt the pain of a pair of strong arms grabbing her hands behind her back. She opened her mouth to scream, but something cold and sharp was being pressed roughly into her neck, persuading her not to do so.

At this Flame shouted out, "Leave her alone!" He dashed over to her and rammed his fist hard into her captor's stomach. The guard doubled up, releasing Ariena. She ran away from him, past Flame, who was turning back to the two men on the platform.

Behind him, the guard was getting back onto his feet, knife in hand. Ariena watched in horror as the guard gave a cry and plunged the blade into Flame's right shoulder. Flame shouted in pain as the knife slipped out of his flesh. He could see his own blood pouring out of the wound and fell to the floor, grunting as he did so.

The men on the platform were both laughing again. They gazed on the scene before them in amusement as Ariena hurried over to Flame, helping him to lie down on the cold, stone floor.

The older one stepped forward and said, directly to Ariena this time, "I don't think I introduced myself properly, my dear. I am King Hades the nine hundred and sixty seventh. This is my son, Prince Hades." He gestured to the younger man who came forward and bowed, smirking.

Ariena ignored them. She had taken off her jacket and was busy trying to locate the source of the blood flowing like a river from Flame. King Hades frowned slightly, apparently put out at being ignored.

"Yes, that is right" he said jeeringly. "Gallantly, you attempt to save the young rebel's life." Suddenly, changing his tone to a cold, harsh whisper, he said, "Don't bother; he's not worth it."

Pausing, he watched to see the effect his words were having on Ariena before continuing.

"Did he tell you about having betrayed the King and trying to overthrow him? Did he tell you what he did to the people of the Underworld, claiming that they could manage without a King? Did he tell you about the time he led three thousand men and boys to their deaths? Did he-"

"SHUT UP!" cried Ariena. "JUST SHUT UP!" The King continued, as if unaffected.

" You still continue to help him even though doubts fill your mind. I wonder if you would still save him if you knew that he was disowned for betraying his own father."

Ariena gasped.

"Me."

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	6. The End

**Chapter Six –The End:**

Ariena's eyes fluttered open. She was lying in the royal bedchamber, Flame asleep in a chair next to her. A thousand thoughts ran through her mind. She sat up and tried to move into a comfortable position.

Flame stirred beside her before fully waking up. He watched her for a second and then pulled her into a bone-crunching hug.

"Need…air…to…breathe," she choked out in shock.

"I thought you were dead!" Flame exclaimed.

"What happened? The last thing I can remember is becoming unconscious after Hades' attack."

"My father and brother are dead."

"How?"

"After you became unconscious, I killed the soldiers and my brother in anger. My father then attempted to attack me but I- I killed him as well," he answered quietly.

"But how?" she asked again.

"I have a suspicion, but I'm not sure. Do you remember when I told you about the Elements?"

"Yes"

"I think we're both Elements. The powers disappeared for many generations so it was probably thought that we would not possess powers either."

"But I'm from above!"

"Who are your parents?"

"I have no idea. I used to live in an orphanage."

"Well, if you don't know, there's always a possibility that they're from down here."

"So," she said, digesting all the information. "Who's going to rule now? All of the royal family are dead."

"You forgot about the last remaining member…"


	7. Epilogue

**Epilogue:**

The procession marched through the brightly lit tunnels, attracting all the people from their homes. The melodious tune of the lute rang through their ears. Accompanying the lute were some percussion instruments together making a regal sound. The Coronation was that day and everyone was rejoicing. A new King was to come to the throne and this time, _everybody_ wanted that King to rule.

A latecomer scrambled into the crowded hall, marvelling at all the decorations. They were elaborate but very sophisticated. At the front of the hall was a podium where the new Royal Advisor stood, dressed in blue robes of silk waiting to crown the King. She was very beautiful.

The ceremony began a second after the entrance of the latecomer. The King entered the hall wearing red and gold robes of velvet. After approaching the Royal Advisor, he knelt before her.

The Royal Advisor picked up the crown from its cushion and began her speech,

"We are gathered here today to witness the dawn of a new age. To witness the crowning of a new King who shall promise us all to rule the land justly and with great kindness. He shall act with consideration for the interests of the people according to law as well as with kindness and patience. He shall safeguard the entire realm and people in accordance with the established law. Do you, prince Flame agree to do all of this for the Underworld?"

"I do. I am willing to fulfil my duties as a ruler."

"Then, I pronounce you King Flame of the Underworld."

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